Julie Van de Kamp grew up around the transportation industry, which led her to work at a few trucking companies while in college. She took a job in pricing at U.S. Xpress (CCJ Top 250, No. 19) post graduation, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to maintain a career in the industry when she started out. But she fell in love with the trucking industry as she grew to understand its contribution to the American economy and the many different problems that need to be solved daily.
Van de Kamp was promoted this month from senior vice president of customer experience to president of U.S. Xpress' dedicated division.
She is one of 25% of executives (director, vice president, senior vice president and C-suite) who identify as female at USX – a company that is known for its diversity initiatives and that was recently recognized as a 2022 CCJ Innovator for its diversification strategy that included innovations aimed at non-English speaking applicants.
Now she is helping pave the way for other women – including 11% drivers and 43% office/shop team members – at the company as an executive sponsor of its Women in the Workplace Employee Resource Group.
She said her hard work and dedication, in addition to her experience as a woman, has contributed to her success not only at the company but in an industry that is primarily made up of men.
"I'm a working mom, but I think everyone faces times when they're like, ‘Why are you going home with your sick kid instead of your husband if you're going to have this job?’ But I think that stereotype goes just as far the other way. If a man is like, ‘I need to be home with my sick kid,’ they're like, ‘Well, why isn't your wife or the kid’s mom doing it?’ So I do think there are different experiences,” she said. “My experience has really been that occasionally I do have a different viewpoint because I have different life experiences, and I think women's brains do often work differently. I also think some of that has to do with my personality profile, whether as a woman or a man. I understand what's important and get that viewpoint as a parent more than I think anything I could have learned necessarily at work."
She has taken her experience as a woman and a mother and applied it to her career, allowing her warmth to shine through and spending more time on things that matter because there isn’t time to spend on things that don’t, she said.
